


Rift in Minor

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/M, Season 3, Set after 6B
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 05:13:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Full disclosure leads to an awkward conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rift in Minor

They spend most of their time at Walter’s home; the exterior is built in angular points like stab wounds, varnished wood and an internal design that spells masculine. Olivia feels warm in her nest of blankets. She wakes to the sound of rickety stairs, Walter’s surprising baritone, the music of a waking household, something she’s missed desperately since Rachel and Ella’s departure.

Olivia thinks exclusive sex in the Bishop household is an unspoken deference - to not push at bruises, the sub-dermal injuries that lie beneath her skin - where even Walter’s awkward presence is better than the ghosts who lurk too closely in her apartment. But the night she brings Peter back to her flat and he stops, bids her goodnight, gives Olivia pause. She watches as he ambles down the street, a tall figure in a pea-coat, with both of his hands shoved deep inside his pockets.

Her own house is bright where the Bishop’s has a closed in feel. Olivia didn’t lie; she brought a new bed, changed the sheets, rearranged her bedroom. Her anger didn’t extend to buying a new home but she reclaimed her territory piece by solitary piece.

The second time Olivia brings him home she manages to draw Peter inside, her hand a loose bracelet around his wrist. They have case-files scattered across the low coffee table, a half empty bottle of single malt and their conversation is the electric mix of insane ideas and the odd non sequitur. She’s loose-limbed with alcohol, warm with unexpected happiness, a smile curving the edges of her mouth.

“Come to bed with me.”

He does. He acts the perfect gentleman - a somnolent question mark curled close to her spine - Peter doesn’t touch her inappropriately and god, gods, this won’t do.

***

Peter’s not gracious upon waking; Olivia he knows sleeps in short bursts, three hours at a time, cat quick and instantly awake, as a teenager Peter was the type of kid that buried his head under the pillowcase and groaned. Pins and needles stir him to consciousness, the deadened feeling when limbs have been stretched too long.

The handcuff would go a long way to explain that.

It’s not the fluffy kind, tight on his wrists and heavy duty, if he struggles there will be ligature marks, Peter will spend the next week wearing long sleeves and trying to dodge Walter. In truth, he’s worn enough handcuffs to _not _find this particularly erotic, something Olivia would know, one more link in the chain of commonality between them. She’s watching him, her arms folded across his chest, chin resting on top, their legs remain tangled together and Peter’s instantly, alarmingly, awake. The chain’s looped between the iron wrought bars.__

Seventeen years of on-the-spot lying keeps his tone civil. “That’s misappropriation of FBI equipment, sweetheart.”

Olivia’s mouth twitches, because in the personal lexicon of Peter Bishop the endearment means anything but, Peter’s a tense line beneath her body and Olivia doesn’t want to turn this into something it’s not. She sits up, thighs pressed against his flanks, sliding back until she straddles his lower abdomen. “Did the two of you only sleep in my apartment?”

“Olivia.” The chain clinks against the bars. Peter blinks rapidly. “This isn’t…”

“Full disclosure, remember?” Olivia leans forward, hair brushing against his torso, and whispers beside his ear. “I like this game.”

“We need to redraft the rules,” he says flatly. He can feel her smile, the sharp impression of teeth against his earlobe before she moves upward.

“Was she aggressive?”

Peter arches his neck to follow her progress, wariness warring against the promise of honesty. “Assertive,” he corrects, quietly.

Peter doesn’t think anything good can come from this line of questioning; Olivia smoothes his fingers out one at a time, her face curiously unlined. She unlocks his right hand from the bracelet and snaps it closed quickly - fastened around the bars - keeping his left hand chained to the bedpost. It’s a compromise of sorts; some of the desperate tension eases. Peter takes a breath and studies her more intently. Olivia rubs circles into his palm, fingers flirting up his arm into his collarbone, easing the ache from his right shoulder. She’s kept his dominant side, the left, restrained, but Peter will take the extra freedom. “Liv,” he drawls. Olivia turns her head, kisses his cheek. Peter extends his arm until he can cup her nape, until he can draw her down, the fragility of human flesh and the clean scent of her pressed beside him. “What are you doing?”

The prickliness has gone from his voice. The first time they had sex it was awkward, a little hesitant, more in common with fumbling teenagers than two adults in their early thirties; a sweetness Olivia associates with childhood. The second time was a comedy of errors until Peter thumped his head against the wall and said _fuck it _and the transition was pure gold, joyous. Olivia's stomach muscles were a quivering mess and she couldn’t say if it was from the multiple orgasms or the laughter that bubbled through their encounter. Peter knows her body, he learnt about it in this very room, she thinks.__

The decision to forgive didn’t come easily but it was _her _decision. She’s heard Peter’s reasons; that he thought Olivia was different because the status of their relationship changed, that he was now privy to different aspects of her emotions. Olivia might have called bullshit bullshit but the truth is Peter was different too, no longer boarded up and guarded, him opening up to her was foreign territory. _I feel like Rip Van Winkle _. She thought the other Olivia wrought those changes in him, but in hindsight, she thinks that’s how Peter chooses to love, once the decision’s made, he lets the walls drop. He thought she was the same.____

If their conversations were awkward it was because Peter didn’t have the luxury to obfuscate, and if Olivia chose to forgive, then part of the reason was Walternate, still married to Elizabeth and neither sharing the same bed; a man not capable of forgiving his wife, not for the theft of his son or the thrift-store outfit that should have alerted her.

Peter’s free arm curls around her spine, his face serious.

“Getting acquainted,” Olivia answers, belatedly. “Did you have sex in the shower?”

“Swung from the chandeliers like monkeys.”

She rubs her thumb down his forehead, smoothes the line out, kisses him soft. “I’m flexible. Gymnastics in high school,” she gifts.

Peter’s hungry for information, he soaks up her offerings like a sponge, some of the worry’s being supplanted, humor leaking into his eyes. He can play her body like a maestros, the highs and lows of her personal orchestra. Olivia’s not interested in hurting him, she holds herself proudly aloof from the dynamics of her childhood, she does want the freedom to explore, though, to gather up lost ground.

Unlike his father Peter doesn’t sleep naked, but he raises his hips when she tugs the boxers down, his mouth quirked, interested. He’s a male, healthy, it doesn’t take long for the interest to manifest, and if Olivia uses her teeth, the crescent of her nails, it’s to punctuate the silence, to listen to his quiet hiss, or the catch to his rapid breathing.


End file.
